The Marvel Universe is a fictional universe where the stories in most American comic book titles and other media published by Marvel Comics take place. Super-teams such as the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Defenders, the Inhumans and other Marvel superheroes live in this universe, including characters such as Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Captain America, Daredevil, Wolverine, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Blade, Ghost Rider, the Punisher, Deadpool, Silver Surfer, and numerous others.
The Universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. While the spatial size of the entire Universe is unknown, it is possible to measure the observable universe.
Cosmogony is any model concerning the origin of either the cosmos or universe. Developing a complete theoretical model has implications in both the philosophy of science and epistemology.
A fictional universe is a self-consistent setting with events, and often other elements, that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm. Fictional universes may appear in novels, comics, films, television shows, video games, and other creative works.
A parallel universe is a hypothetical self-contained reality co-existing with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes are called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality. While the terms "parallel universe" and "alternative reality" are generally synonymous and can be used interchangeably in most cases, there is sometimes an additional connotation implied with the term "alternative reality" that implies that the reality is a variant of our own. The term "parallel universe" is more general, without implying a relationship, or lack of relationship, with our own universe. A universe where the very laws of nature are different – for example, one in which there are no Laws of Motion – would in general count as a parallel universe but not an alternative reality and a concept between both fantasy world and earth.
The Big Crunch is one of the theoretical scenarios for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately causing the cosmic scale factor to reach zero or causing a reformation of the universe starting with another Big Bang.
The DC Universe (DCU) is the fictional shared universe where most stories in American comic book titles published by DC Comics take place. DC superheroes such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are from this universe, and it also contains well known supervillains such as Lex Luthor, the Joker, and Darkseid. In context, the term "DC Universe" usually refers to the main DC continuity.
A logarithmic timeline is a timeline laid out according to a logarithmic scale. This necessarily implies a zero point and an infinity point, neither of which can be displayed. The most natural zero point is the Big Bang, looking forward, but the most common is the ever-changing present, looking backward.
An alternative universe is the occurrence of canonical facts about the setting or characterization of a particular fictional universe being explored in a non-canonical way. These universes are often made unofficially, though elements of fan fiction are sometimes used in official, though usually non-canonical, storylines.
This more than 20-billion-year timeline of our universe shows the best estimates of major events from the universe's beginning to anticipated future events. Zero on the scale is the present day. A large step on the scale is one billion years; a small step, one hundred million years. The past is denoted by a minus sign: e.g., the oldest rock on Earth was formed about four billion years ago and this is marked at -4e+09 years, where 4e+09 represents 4 times 10 to the power of 9. The "Big Bang" event most likely happened 13.8 billion years ago; see age of the universe.
Mordru is a fictional supervillain appearing in books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Jim Shooter and artist Curt Swan, Mordru first appeared in Adventure Comics #369.
"Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!" is a comic book crossover storyline published by DC Comics in 1994, consisting of an eponymous five-issue central miniseries and a number of tie-in books. In it, the former hero Hal Jordan, who had until then been a member of the intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps, mad with grief after the destruction of his home town of Coast City and having obtained immense power as Parallax, attempted to destroy, and then remake, the DC Universe. The crossover involved almost every DC Universe monthly series published at the time. The issues of the series itself were numbered in reverse order, beginning with issue #4 and ending with #0. The series was written and penciled by Dan Jurgens, with inks by Jerry Ordway. This series is noted for its motif of the DC Universe gradually "fading out" as events reached their climax.
Within Marvel Comics, most tales take place within the fictional Marvel Universe, which in turn is part of a larger multiverse. Starting with issues of Captain Britain, the main continuity in which most Marvel storylines take place was designated Earth-616, and the multiverse was established as being protected by Merlyn. Each universe has a Captain Britain designated to protect its version of the British Isles. These protectors are collectively known as the Captain Britain Corps. This numerical notation was continued in the series Excalibur and other titles. Each universe of the Multiverse in Marvel also appears to be defended by a Sorcerer Supreme at nearly all times, appointed by the mystic trinity of Vishanti to defend the world against threats primarily magical in nature from within and beyond and bearing the Eye of Agamotto.
The Cosmic Calendar is a method to visualize the chronology of the universe, scaling its current age of 13.8 billion years to a single year in order to help intuit it for pedagogical purposes in science education or popular science.
The Multiverse, within DC Comics publications, is a "cosmic construct" collecting many of the fictional universes in which the published stories take place. The worlds in this multiverse share a space and fate in common, and its structure has changed several times in the history of DC Comics.
Observations suggest that the expansion of the universe will continue forever. If so, then a popular theory is that the universe will cool as it expands, eventually becoming too cold to sustain life. For this reason, this future scenario once popularly called "heat death" is now known as the Big Chill or Big Freeze.
The following are timelines of modern history, from c. 1500, the end of the Middle Ages to the present.
Fringe is an American science fiction drama television series originally broadcast from 2008 to 2013. The show, created by Jeffrey Jacob Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, revolves around the fictional Fringe Division, a congressionally funded federal law enforcement task force, manned primarily by Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security personnel. The task force is responsible for investigating crimes and phenomena related to fringe science and the individuals and conspiratorial organizations that perpetrate those acts. During the five year series, the mythology and backstory of the show expanded exponentially across a broad spectrum of recurring themes, locations and characters to serialize story arcs and intricately link early episodes with later ones across all five seasons.
